The lone wolf is the new national nightmare, dramatized and amplified this week by the hostage-taking attack in Sydney, Australia. But there are two kinds of lone wolves - the crazy and the evil - and the distinction is important.

Old habits die hard. The media are so enamored of the continuing (and largely contrived) story about the great Republican civil war that they fail to appreciate that the real internecine fight is being waged on the other side of the aisle.

Historic. Such is the ubiquitous description of the climate agreement recently announced in Beijing between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping in which China promised for the first time to cap carbon emissions.

It's not exactly the Ems Dispatch (the diplomatic cable Bismarck doctored to provoke the 1870 Franco-Prussian War). But what the just-resurfaced Gruber Confession lacks in world-historical consequence, it makes up for in world-class cynicism.

Memo to the GOP. You had a great night on Tuesday. But remember: You didn't win it. The Democrats lost it.
This is not to say that you didn't show discipline in making the election a referendum on six years of Barack Obama.

The president is upset. Very upset. Frustrated and angry. Seething about the government's handling of Ebola, said the front-page headline in The New York Times last Saturday.
There's only one problem with this pose. It's his government. He's president.